Analysis of Politics, Philosophy and Economics from a Marxist Perspective

Thursday, 9 February 2017

Labour's Dog's Brexit

It is pretty
difficult to fathom exactly what the logic has been behind Labour's
attitude to Brexit, because as far as I can see there is no logic.
What is more, the behaviour of Labour's leadership during the whole
Brexit debate, and process, must go down as one of the worst examples
of political strategy and tactics in the party's history. I say that
as someone who has known Jeremy Corbyn for nearly 40 years, when we
were both members of the Socialist Campaign for A Labour Victory, and
who has been a strong supporter of Corbyn for Labour Leader.

The clue to
understanding this Dog's Brexit of a strategy was in part given by
Dianne Abbot in a comment made last night. Having made clear that
she was only voting for the unamended Third Reading of the Brexit
Bill, under protest, and because to have voted against would have
meant undermining Corbyn's leadership, Abbot had a warning for the
left around Corbyn, who might have thought that in securing Brexit,
they were in some way fulfilling the dream of Tony Benn for a
withdrawal from the EU. “This is not Tony Benn's Brexit,” she
warned, but a Donald Trump Brexit”.

Corbyn was
under pressure from two different forces. On the one hand, the soft
left and right of the party long ago abandoned any pretext of
defending workers' right to free movement, a right that was hard won
centuries ago, as part of the struggle to break apart all of the old
feudal monopolies and restrictions on liberty. They continually
performed verbal and logical acrobatics to try to reconcile their
irreconcilable arguments that one the one hand immigrants were not to
blame for society's ills, and yet which simultaneously sought to
restrict immigration as a means of remedying those ills! They tried
to reconcile this irreconcilable dilemma with all sorts of
meaningless talk about “managed migration”, or “humane
immigration controls”. In essence what it amounted to was a
pandering to bigotry, and a failure to address the real cause of
workers' problems, in relation to housing, jobs, living standards,
healthcare and so on, which entailed ending austerity, and devoting a
greater proportion of society's resources to meet workers' needs.

So, during
the referendum campaign, and before it, after the 2015 election
defeat, it was not surprising to see such sections of the party
arguing the need for some modification of free movement, and
tightening of immigration controls. It was nothing more than the
usual opportunist pandering for short term electoral benefit.

On the other
hand, there has undoubtedly been a section of the left around Corbyn
that harboured ideas that stem from the old Stalinist policy of
national socialism, or the theory of Socialism in One Country.
Besides those overtly Stalinist elements, were those other sections
of the left, whose political strategy is based not on what is good
for socialism, or for the advancement of workers interests, but
solely on the basis of what is supposedly bad for “imperialism”.
Those elements were the ones that were proposing some kind of Lexit,
or Left Exit from the EU.

But, in
fact, as was always going to be the case, even if Lexit were itself a
progressive policy – which it wasn't – the forces of the left are
so weak, that their voices arguing for such a position would always
have been drowned out during the referendum campaign by the other
voices calling for Brexit. It was always going to be the case that
it would be a matter of a Donald Trump or Nigel Farage Brexit, rather
than a Tony Benn Brexit. And, the fact of that was seen in the
upsurge in racist attacks after the referendum result, and the size
of the vote the Tories now have to press ahead with Brexit, means
that we can expect an even greater carnival of reaction as the
process unfolds.

But, the
fact is that a Tony Benn Brexit would have been a reactionary Brexit
too. It would have been a Little Englander Brexit, a Brexit that
implies that in some mysterious way, the exploitation that British
workers face from British capitalists, and their state, is in some
way better than the exploitation they face from EU capitalists, and
their state! It is itself implicitly racist, and nationalistic,
implying that the problems that workers face derive not from their
exploitation by capital, whatever its nationality, but from the
nationality of the exploiter. The implication is that instead of
Marx’s advice for workers of the world to unite, the workers of
Britain should unite with their own bourgeoisie to oppose the workers
and capitalists of other nations. It is a thoroughly reactionary
perspective.

It now seems
to me that this pressure on Corbyn from both the soft left and right
of the party, together with the pressure from nationalistic left is
the only rational explanation for the otherwise irrational position
that Corbyn and the leadership adopted. The soft left and right had
already collapsed into dropping the need to defend, free movement.
But, the only reason to make a fetish over staying in the single
market and customs union, is a recognition that it implies a
continuation of free movement. The soft left and right were happy to
demand staying in the single market and customs union, whilst arguing
the need to make a semblance of trying to negotiate changes to free
movement, because they start not from what is in the interests of
workers, but what is in the interests of capital.

As I said
some time ago, staying in the single market and customs union as
currently constituted is in the interests of capital, and only
indirectly in the interests of workers by promoting greater trade,
and economic growth. But, there are many aspects of the single
market and customs union, as currently constituted that are not in
workers' interests. It has been shaped over the last thirty years in
a climate where conservative politics has dominated the decision
making centres of Europe and the globe. It has sought to roll back
some of the measures that social democracy introduced in the thirty
years after WWII, that sought to promote the growth of industrial
capital, via greater economic regulation and planning.

Rather than
arguing, as the soft left and right did that the priority was to stay
in the single market and customs union, but that they would try to
reform the right of free movement, Labour's position should have been
that they would defend free movement to the end, but would seek to
reform the single market and customs union, so as to better protect
workers interests across Europe, to remove the reliance upon the free
market, to remove the constraints on fiscal stimulus and so on.

The fact was
that, the soft Brexit that the soft left and right desired was a
chimera. It could never exist. The EU would never entertain the
idea of Britian picking and choosing what elements of the single
market it wanted, whilst withdrawing from the four basic freedoms
upon which the EU was founded. Given that the other forces pressing
down on Corbyn, from the nationalist left, and the idiot
anti-imperialist left, that could see no further than the need to
undermine imperialism, in the shape of the EU, had no desire to stay
in the EU, all of the forces acting on Corbyn pointed in the
direction of simply rolling over and voting for Brexit.

Yet, such a
position makes no sense. It would make more sense were it the case
that a majority of Labour voters, or Labour supporters, or Labour
MP's supporteed Brexit, but they they don't. If a majority of Labour
voters supported Brexit, a principled position would still require
Labour to oppose it, because it is reactionary, and against workers'
immediate, medium and long-term interests. Yet, it would be
understandable given the opportunist, electoralist nature of the
Labour Party, that it would accommodate in order to retain those
votes. But, 65% of Labour voters voted for Remain! As I have shown
previously, even in heavily Leave voting constituencies, its likely
that a majority of Labour voters still voted Remain, or only a small
majority voted Leave.

There is no
electoral advantage for Labour in rolling over and supporting Brexit,
because in Leave constituencies that have overwhelming Labour
majorities, no one seriously believes that in a General Election,
where workers will be voting on a range of issues covering jobs,
living standards, the NHS etc. there is any chance of those
majorities being overturned by UKIP. The biggest threat to Labour in
those constituencies and in all others, in fact, comes from the fact
that Labour as a party once again appears to be seriously divided,
that its policies are confused, and that its current leadership has
turned out to be no different to previous leaderships that simply
spin, and manoeuvre for short term advantage.

Labour's
position in the Brexit debate also made no sense. More than 100
amendments to the Brexit Bill were submitted. To have any chance of
any of them being approved let alone accepted by the government,
would have required that a sizeable number of Tory MP's joined with
the opposition to support them. In fact, very few Tory MP's opposed
the government, despite the fact that its known that at least a
couple of dozen opposed the government's line. The reason few of
them rebelled is obvious. As a Tory MP, why would you stick out your
neck by such an act of rebellion when you knew all along that the
government would have a safe majority, whatever happened because
Labour had Theresa May's back in the final vote?

Last year,
Corbyn set down red lines, which if crossed, he said, would lead to
Labour voting against the triggering of Article 50. That would have
been a basis for building a majority for a series of amendments
restricting the governments actions during the Brexit negotiations.
But, then Corbyn dropped that, scrapped any red lines, and said that
Labour would support the Brexit Bill whatever happened. At that
point, the chance of securing the votes of any Tory rebels
disappeared in a puff of smoke. Once again, it represents some of
the worst tactics and strategy in Labour's history. The idea that
any kind of rearguard action can be mounted against the Tory Brexit,
or that “the real fight starts here” is pure fantasy, and gesture
that just looks silly.

In just the
same way that it was individuals in the courts, and not a concerted
campaign by Labour that resulted in May even having to bring the
Brexit Bill to Parliament, now the next step in defeating it rests
with the unelected House of Lords. We can only hope that the Lords
vote the Bill down, provoking the Tories to abolish that vestige of
feudalism so that at least something progressive will have come out
of the affair. Similarly, rather than Tory Brexit being defeated by
a mobilised Labour Movement, it is now more likely that it will be
defeated by the representatives of big industrial capital itself, as
a growing deterioration of the economy, begins to impose itself.

But, all
that is a far cry from the promises of the Labour leadership months
ago to turn the Labour party into a social movement. In fact, what
has been seen is the very antithesis of that. The cry of this Labour
leadership has been based upon an abstract and primitivist democracy
that the people have spoken, and so that voice has to be obeyed. Set
aside, the fact that almost as many people spoke against Brexit and
their voices are being ignored, the whole point about building a
social movement is that it does not allow itself to simply tail
public opinion, but attempts to shape it. A social movement does not
start from the presumption that a majority is always right, because
frequently the majority are wrong. A majority once thought the Earth
was flat, and that the Sun moved around the Earth, for example.

The idea
that Labour had to vote for Brexit because a small majority in a
referendum had voted that way is insane. In the 1990's, Tory
governments were elected on several occasions standing on platforms
that introduced things like the Poll tax, the anti-union laws and so
on. So, should the fact that the people had spoken in favour of such
policies have then meant that Labour MP's also then voted for those
policies? Of course, not. So, why would Labour feel that it has to
collapse into a support for Brexit, now, simply on the back of a
referendum vote?

The
confusion is carried forward into the current by-elections, which
give the impression that the Labour candidates are hiding from the
media rather than having to reconcile their conflicting positions in
the glare of publicity. In Stoke Central, we have a Labour candidate
who has vociferously opposed Brexit, but who now says he would have
voted for it in Parliament, and who has opposed Corbyn publicly, in a
constituency that voted 10:1 for Corbyn as Leader.

A clear and
consistent message this is not; a confident and clear presentation of
that message it is not; and the basis for building a social movement
capable of taking principled positions, and standing firm on them
against the stream it is not. A number of Corbyn's supporters, like Clive Lewis, have been led to depart. It was clear that Dianne Abbot was close to following suit. Unnecessarily straining the loyalty of your supporters, simply to assuage some of your enemies, is never a good strategy.

About Me

Left school at 16. Became an ASTMS shop steward at 19, and a lifelong trade union activist. Delegate to North Staffs Trades Council 1974-87. Secretary North Staffs Miners Support Committee 1984-5. President North Staffs Trades Council 1985-6 and 1986-7. Delegate to Staffordshire Association of Trades Councils 1985-7. Delegate West Midlands Regional Council of the TUC 1985-7. Secretary Newcastle UNISON 2000-2.
Member of the International Communist League/Workers Socialist League 1974-87.
Went to University as mature student at age of 24. Obtained Joint Honours Degree in Economics and Politics with Philosophy and Statistics, followed by a Post Graduate Certificate in Education.
Labour Party member since 1974. Stoke City Councillor 1983-4, expelled from Labour group 1983, and resigned from Council in 1984 because of refusing to vote for rent and rate rises, and budget cuts. Staffordshire County Councillor 1997-2005.
Assistant Secretary Stoke District Labour Party 1981, and held pretty much every position from Executive member, to Branch Secretary, and Branch Chair.